Official plays down Kunming ethnic link

Reuters, BEIJING

A deadly knife attack at a Chinese train station last week should not be linked to ethnicity, a senior government official said, days after authorities blamed the incident on separatists from Xinjiang.

China says militants from Xinjiang, home to a large Muslim Uighur minority, launched a “terrorist” attack in Kunming, killing 29 people and injuring about 140.

It was one of the worst bouts of violence to spill out of the restive region, where more than 100 people, including several policemen, have been killed in unrest since April last year.

Fear and resentment between majority Han Chinese and Uighurs have spread after the attack, said Zhu Weiqun (朱維群), director of the Committee for Ethnic and Religious Affairs of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

The committee is the top advisory body to the National People’s Congress, which is meeting this week in Beijing.

“Such sentiments — although not widespread — deserve our attention,” Zhu told the China Daily, adding that the “overwhelming majority of the migrant Uighurs from Xinjiang are good people.”

“Most Uighurs are with us in the fight against separatism and violent terrorism,” he said, in an interview in the English-language newspaper published yesterday. “They sincerely support the central government.”

The comments highlight Beijing’s concern over the growing frictions between Uighurs and Han Chinese and the potential for further unrest.

After the Kunming attack, many residents voiced ethnic concerns reporters and some businesses and hotels displayed signs turning away Uighurs. Online accounts have described growing discrimination against Uighurs, ranging from their evictions from apartments to refusals by taxi drivers.

Police in the Yunnan city of Dali were forced to apologize on an official microblog for helping to evict a Uighur man from his apartment after being called in for an identity check on Sunday, the popular Global Times tabloid reported.

Beijing has not explicitly accused Uighurs of carrying out the Kunming attack, but by calling the perpetrators Xinjiang extremists the implication is clear.

State media have reported that a female suspect was injured and captured in the attack in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, which is hundreds of kilometers southeast of Xinjiang, and that three suspects, including another woman, had been caught.

Four were shot dead.

Many Uighurs say they are unhappy at Chinese curbs on their culture and religion, though the government says they are given wide freedoms.

China bristles at suggestions from exiles and rights groups that the unrest is driven more by unhappiness at government policies than by any serious threat from extremist groups who want to establish an independent state called East Turkestan.

Authorities say many have links with foreign groups, although rights groups and some foreign experts say there is little evidence to support this.